News

In partnership with the World Bank Institute, OECD and UCL City Leadership Institute, The Business of Cities has authored a new report on city leadership. This paper looks at how leadership teams can be built and run to enable cities to move beyond their governance deficits. On the basis of a series of case studies, interviews with city leaders and a review of existing literature, the report identifies two key ingredients in the creation of efficient city leadership. First it highlights that leaders need to be accomplished innovators, coming up with fresh ways of meeting the challenges their cities face. Second, the paper emphasises the importance of building a shared system of leadership, in which all different elements of the broad system of city governance can work together to secure better urban futures

The Business of Cities has authored a new report analysing the competitiveness of Brussels and Antwerp. Launched at ULI Belgium’s inaugural Annual Conference in May 2016, the report assesses Belgium’s two largest cities along 12 dimensions of competitiveness. For Brussels, the report highlights the city’s geo-political and governance risks, and the importance of catalytic projects to address social and spatial imbalances. For Antwerp, the report illustrates the value of a metropolitan growth strategy and an infrastructure pipeline to promote city living. The report recommends that both cities’ potential in the new innovation economy will be enhanced through greater clarity and international visibility of the two cities’ brand and identity.

Tim Moonen presented The Business of Cities’ latest work on City Leadership at a professional course for Sustainable Urban Development at Kellogg College, University of Oxford. This extended lecture draws on the extensive work The Business of Cities has carried out internationally on city leaders, business leadership for cities, and practical solutions for leadership conundrums such as densification, long-term strategic planning, and financing development.

The Business of Cities are the authors of a new report, published by JLL, which builds a new typology of cities based on the latest city performance indices.

This research makes a breakthrough by adding three new concepts to the cities lexicon: ‘established’ world cities, ‘emerging’ world cities and ‘new’ world cities. By employing data from over 200 city indices the report argues that it no longer makes sense to understand all cities as being in competition with every other city. Instead it shows how cities typically share similar classes of assets, challenges and trajectories with a small cluster of other similarly endowed cities. The paper concludes with examples of the imperatives cities in each different ‘type’ share if they are to manage their growth and development effectively in future.

London’s opportunity to become an efficient and cohesive 10 million person city through a co-ordinated mix of density solutions is the subject of a new study authored by Greg Clark and Tim Moonen. The report, published by ULI in partnership with TH Real Estate, reviews London’s experiments with higher density and assesses what other ingredients are necessary to deliver density at the necessary pace and scale.

This work is one of six in-depth reports on European cities that inform a wider assessment of the impacts and advantages of densification for cities that are either growing fast, bouncing back, or consolidating at a smaller size. Click on the image to view the report.

The authors wish to thank all those who have contributed their time and expertise during the consultation for this report. Special thanks to Jonathan Couturier for his research to prepare the case study.

Istanbul has an imperative to retain its compact and vibrant character through the next cycle of growth and infrastructure development, according to a new study authored by Greg Clark and Tim Moonen. The report, published by ULI in partnership with TH Real Estate, examines what is needed to re-engineer Istanbul’s un-planned high density model in order to create a more polycentric, resilient and socially integrated city

This work is one of six in-depth reports on European cities that inform a wider assessment of the impacts and advantages of densification for cities that are either growing fast, bouncing back, or consolidating at a smaller size. Click on the image to view the report.

The authors wish to thank all those who have contributed their time and expertise during the consultation for this report. Special thanks to Jonathan Couturier and Elena Kuskova for their research to prepare the case study.

Greg Clark and Tim Moonen are the authors of a new study of Dresden’s story of a formerly shrinking city that has consolidated and renewed its quality of life and place. The report, published by ULI in partnership with TH Real Estate, explores how Dresden has faced up to the phenomenon of urban shrinkage and used density as a tool to avoid the ‘ghost town’ effect.

This work is one of six in-depth reports on European cities that inform a wider assessment of the impacts and advantages of densification for cities that are either growing fast, bouncing back, or consolidating at a smaller size. Click on the image to view the report.

The authors wish to thank all those who have contributed their time and expertise during the consultation for this report. Special thanks to Jonathan Couturier for his research to prepare the case study.

Greg Clark and Tim Moonen are the authors of a new study ofBirmingham’s journey of development and capacity to densify in future. The report, published by ULI in partnership with TH Real Estate, highlights Birmingham’s sharp recovery from previous cycles of under-investment, and the promise now to accelerate its progress to becoming an attractive and competitive higher density city. Click image to view report.

This work is one of six in-depth reports on European cities that inform a wider assessment of the impacts and advantages of densification for cities that are either growing fast, bouncing back, or consolidating at a smaller size.

The authors wish to thank all those who have contributed their time and expertise during the consultation for this report. Special thanks to Jonathan Couturier for his research to prepare the case study.

Greg Clark and Tim Moonen are co-authors of a new study of density and urban change in collaboration with the Urban Land Institute and TH Real Estate. The report examines the experience and innovations of six European cities – Birmingham, Dresden, Istanbul, London, Stockholm and Warsaw. It argues that many cities—especially those in Europe—have little choice but to densify if they are to avoid becoming locked in to models of development that are inflexible, unattractive, unsustainable, and ultimately uncompetitive. Density is now a critical tool to realise advantage and to avoid decline.

The report is the second piece of work in ULI’s density initiative, which seeks to increase knowledge of density in the real estate industry and beyond; to address the social, economic, and environmental benefits of investing in density; and to promote density as a priority for public and private leaders.

This report examines the impact of different urban tools and tactics on densification efforts, and looks at how density can play a role in building strategies for future cycles. It shows that for cities to make progress they need to:

· Get the fundamentals right
In order to increase density successfully, a city first needs leaders to develop a story and vision for its future evolution that can galvanise attention and support from residents, workers and investors alike. It must create a robust growth plan that provides a guiding framework within which development can proceed. These are fundamentals without which progress on density can only be partial and fragmented.

· Prioritise execution arrangements
In order to operationalise the vision of a denser city, leaders then need tactics about where and how to densify. They need to achieve a critical mass of redevelopment and to promote a scale of urban adaptation that creates genuinely new dimensions to a city. They also need durable systems of investment and enhanced legal, land-use, and asset management tools to shape development fully.

· Build and maintain momentum
In order to maintain momentum across political and economic cycles, cities also need to foster demand for new urban space, and focus on the positive psychology of vibrant urban lifestyles and locations.

Greg Clark and Tim Moonen are co-authors of a new study, in collaboration with the Urban Land Institute, that explains how and why the real estate industry needs to adjust to the urbanisation of innovation.